First tow with Truck, 5th-wheel and 5-Star Tuning

[1ViciousGSX]

Went to Talladega this past weekend for the race. Finally got a chance to put my truck, 5th-wheel and 5-Star Tuning to the test.

Did good, truck handled it very well for a V10 gasser. Except for one hill on a back country road, 1st gear, gas pedal to the floor and barely maintained my speed. If I had to guess, it was probably somewhere between 8-12% grade. Lucky for me it was a short hill. I now know why that little section of road went to 4 lane at the bottom of the hill and back to 2 lane at the top, LOL. Otherwise on flat ground I could use overdrive and cruise at 65mph @ 1800-1900rpm. If I started to go up and down small interstate inclines I could just turn overdrive off and cruise 65mph @ 2400-2600rpm and do just fine.

Decided to have it weighed at a CAT Scale.

Truck and trailer (half tank of gas):
Steering axle 3620 lb
Drive axle 5820 lb
Trailer axle 11,080 lb
GCVW 20,520 lb

Went and weighed the truck separately (full tank of gas):
Steering axle 3610 lb
Drive axle 3540 lb
GCVW 7340 lb

So that means the trailer weighed roughly 13,360 lbs. Now keep in mind I had 60 gallons of fresh water on board the trailer which is close to 500 lbs. Next time I'll go empty and get it filled once I'm at the track. Fresh water trucks come around and will fill you up for $25.00, no matter how big your tank is.

Amazingly the truck only drops about an inch with the 2280 lb hitch weight. Never once touched the helper spring. As a note: I had fire wood stacked about half way up the front bed panel all the way across and a small BBQ pit. Maybe 100 lbs worth. This stayed the same for both weightings.

5-Star's 93 Octane Tow tune did great. Nice longer/higher than usual shift points to get the rig rolling and keep the V10 in it's sweet spot. No gear hunting at all. Just controlled/timed down shifting out of overdrive as needed. For the most part, if there was a lot of up and down action on interstate inclines/overpasses I just turned overdrive off to make it easier on the truck.

Overall great weekend, except for a little rain.